From the CBC:
“Pandemic-era patios still too
often inaccessible, disability advocates say”
More than 16 months into the
COVID-19 pandemic, Canadians with disabilities say many restaurant and bar
patios that have been expanded onto streets and sidewalks to create more
outdoor seating remain inaccessible to them. They say it's bad for people with
disabilities and bad for businesses. David Lepofsky, a law professor and chair
of Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA) Alliance said the
expanded patios pose two challenges. One is that the patios themselves are
often inaccessible for people who have mobility issues, vision loss or hearing
loss. The other is that they also sometimes make the sidewalks and streets
inaccessible, too. Bars and restaurants
across Canada have expanded outdoor seating as provinces clamped down on indoor
dining to curb COVID-19 infections, which spread more easily indoors.
Walking into oncoming traffic
(David Lepofsky, chair of the
AODA Alliance in Toronto, says he once had to step into traffic to get past a
sidewalk patio.)
Lepofsky, who is blind, said in
an interview that he was once forced to step into the street because there was
no space to socially distance on the sidewalk next to a patio in Toronto. "Nobody
really wants to walk into oncoming traffic. And if you're a blind person, you
particularly don't want to walk into oncoming traffic," he said. Toronto's
guidebook for patios does include a list of accessibility requirements,
including leaving a 2.1-metre pathway clear for pedestrians, that the city's
accessibility rules and the province's rules under AODA are complied with and
that patios have a barrier around them so that people who use white canes can
pass by safely. "This past winter, City staff committed to enhancing the
requirements in the guidebook by including feedback from the accessibility
community and meeting with the Toronto Accessibility Advisory Committee,"
City of Toronto spokesperson Deborah Blackstone said in an email to CBC News. "Members of the public are encouraged to
contact 311 if they observe a public space that has been obstructed or blocked
so that City staff can respond as soon as possible."
A 'very frustrating'
experience But Lepofsky said the pathways beside sidewalk patios are often
not large enough to allow for social distancing and that the existing rules
under AODA are insufficient. He argues that requirements for new
structures under Ontario's Building Code or AODA are inadequate and "have
been for a long time." "And there appears to be no municipal
enforcement to ensure that there is a safe, accessible path of travel around
the patio," he said. Lee Pigeau, national executive director of the
Canadian Hard of Hearing Association, said dining on patios can be "very
frustrating" for people with hearing loss. People who read lips are already
struggling to communicate because everyone is wearing masks, and street patios
add additional distractions with the noise from traffic, he said. "You
get music and noises from all sides, which makes communication very
difficult," he said in an interview.
Businesses are losing
customers, advocate says In New Brunswick, where disability rates are
higher than the national level, accessibility standards for sidewalk patios are
inadequate, says Haley Flaro, executive director of Ability New Brunswick. In Fredericton, where Flaro lives, the
city lists two accessibility requirements on its application for sidewalk
patios. It says patios must be wheelchair accessible and a two-metre pathway
must be left beside the patio when possible. But Flaro says that's not enough, since
there's often not enough room to navigate a wheelchair between tables and the
tables themselves may not be high enough for wheelchairs to fit underneath. "When
a business opens or expands the patio and it is not accessible, they're losing
about 12 per cent of their business in New Brunswick right off the bat,"
she said. "So we know accessibility is good for a lot of things and
business is one of them." Spokespeople for the City of Fredericton
did not respond to a request for comment.
'Here we go again' Victoria
Levack of Halifax uses a power wheelchair. She's the spokesperson for the
Disability Rights Coalition of Nova Scotia and chair of the Nova Scotia League
for Equal Opportunities. "There are times I can't get by [sidewalk
patios]. I physically can't," she said in an interview. Both she
and Lepofsky said that the patios are just one small piece of a bigger problem:
Canadian cities aren't accessible enough for people with disabilities. "So along comes the pandemic and
these patios and it's like 'Here we go again,'" Lepofsky said.
^ It doesn’t surprise me that
both businesses and the Government are doing little to nothing to help the
disabled and can simply use Covid as the excuse. ^
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